Grade 1 Immersions – Beginning with Mindfulness

Immersions is a new curricular initiative for our Grade 1 students designed to offer enrichment learning experiences and a deeper-dive into aspects of our program.

Once per month, we will set aside a large block of time in order to offer our first graders a focused and immersive learning experience. In order to offer these meaningful experiences across a wide breadth of curricular areas, the Grade 1 team is partnering with specialist teachers in planning, designing and delivering these specialized programs. Immersions topics this year will include: Math Exploration, STEAM, The Connection between Art & Nature, Exploring China and more. We also have some fun surprises in store for your children that we look forward to sharing with them later in the year.

For our first Immersions program, we focused on the topic of Mindfulness and its connection to availability for learning in the classroom. School Psychologist Rebecca Comizio and Plus Program Director/Service Learning Co-Director Kathy Kravec, both of whom have been professionally trained in the field of mindfulness, offered today’s program. The children spent time learning about energy in their bodies and strategies for how notice it, to control it, or to become “unstuck” if the way they are feeling is hindering their ability to focus or be present. They learned about ways to hit the “reset button” and to listen to their bodies so that they can shift to be more available to what is going on around them. While mindfulness has been shown to help students calm their bodies and focus their minds on the learning at hand, there are of course applications for these strategies outside of the classroom as well. If you have any questions about mindfulness or its benefits, please feel free to reach out to Rebecca or Kathy. I have also included some relevant links on mindfulness below. Your children were engaged and enthusiastic about this work, and all looked quite content to close their eyes, take a deep breath and re-center as part of the lesson.